How have the struggles against untouchability changed their forms and perspectives from Gandhian to Ambedkarite positions? (2017)
The shift from M. K. Gandhi to B. R. Ambedkar is not one of temperament but of diagnosis: for Gandhi untouchability was a corruption of Hinduism, for Ambedkar a product of it. Every change in the form of struggle follows from that disagreement.
The two positions, criteria-wise
| Dimension | Gandhian struggle | Ambedkarite struggle |
|---|---|---|
| Cause diagnosed | A “blot” and excrescence on Hinduism; varnashrama in its pure form is division of labour without grading | Untouchability is produced by caste, and caste by the religious sanction of the shastras |
| Principal agent | Caste Hindus, through a change of heart and penance | The untouchables themselves — educate, agitate, organise |
| Characteristic form | Temple-entry satyagraha (Vaikom, 1924–25; Guruvayur), fasts, constructive work, the Harijan Sevak Sangh (1932) | Civil-rights satyagraha (Mahad, 1927, for tank water; the Manusmriti burnt), organisation, legislation, conversion |
| Name used | Harijan, children of God — a name conferred | Dalit, broken or ground down — a name chosen |
| Remedy sought | Reform of Hinduism from within; trusteeship in economic life | Political power and separate representation, then annihilation of caste; exit at Nagpur, 14 October 1956 |
What actually changed
- From reform to rights. Relief given by the conscience of the dominant becomes an entitlement claimed against the state; Ambedkar held that outside concern must take the form of helping untouchables fight, not prescribing solutions to them.
- From integration to autonomy. The break point was institutional: the Communal Award’s separate electorates, Gandhi’s fast, and the Poona Pact of September 1932, which substituted reserved seats within joint electorates. Ambedkar accepted it and always regarded it as a defeat.
- From the temple to the statute. Article 17, the Untouchability (Offences) Act 1955 — renamed the Protection of Civil Rights Act in 1976 — and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 replace the appeal to conscience with enforceable penalty.
- From self-purification to self-respect. The Dalit Panthers (1972), Dalit literature and later the Bahujan Samaj Party (1984) turned stigma into political identity, extending the anti-caste lineage of Jyotirao Phule and Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, not the reformist one.
Continuities and limits
Both were mass movements of non-violent public action. But the Ambedkarite turn has secured political recognition more successfully than economic redistribution — Ambedkar’s own distinction between political and social democracy.
Conclusion
The struggle has moved from being conducted for untouchables within Hinduism to being waged by Dalits against caste, and from moral persuasion to constitutional claim. Its present form is assertion politics: in 2024 the Bhim Army’s founder won the Nagina Lok Sabha seat on an independent Ambedkarite platform — the Gandhian idiom of uplift replaced by the Ambedkarite idiom of power.